Will you be making merry on New Year's Eve?

Charming! was my first thought as I read about New Year's celebrations in El Paso (my home town) in 1913.  Yes, that would be exactly a century ago.  I was reading "Viva 1914", a "Tales From the Morgue" article in the El Paso Times for December 29, 2013 by Trish Long.

The direct quotations from the 100 year old article drew me back for a second reading. Why was I so fascinated?  It was the language used in writing the 1914 article, of course! We all know that changes in language are inevitable, whether we approve of those changes or not.  And change in language is usually not abrupt.  It sneaks up on us until,  one day, we realize that certain words or expressions or grammatical constructions are beginning to sound (as my 28 year old son frequently reminds me), old-fashioned, passé, so last century.

Here are some of the expressions from the 1913 article that I would judge as more typical of 1913 than 2013.  See if you would agree.

"Young and Old Make Merry..."   "The streets were thronged with merrymakers."   I don't think we do much making merry these days.  I would say that we had fun or had a great time. Some people might say that they had a blast (already out of date?). But a quick glance at a thesaurus reminds me that there are lots more interesting synonyms for making merry  (http://thesaurus.com/browse/make+merry).  You can paint the town, raise hell, make whoopee, live it up, let loose, kick up one's heels, or have a ball.  But even those expressions sound a little worn.  What do young people say these days, I wonder?  It isn't 'make merry' for sure!

"It was a merry old night for El Paso, everybody being gay..."  As everyone is aware these days, the word 'gay' has made a semantic shift so that the original meaning of 'happy' is now considered secondary to the primary meaning of 'homosexual'.

"The police bothered but few merrymakers last night.  Those who became rowdy or rough were summarily 'pinched' and sent to jail..."  The word 'pinched' was in single quotes in the original article, so it must have been considered slang in 1913.  A modern day slang meaning for 'pinched' is 'steal'.  

Now this next expression I love.  "Up in the ballroom the merry dancers tripped the light fantastic..."  Would modern day dances be described in such fanciful terms? I can't quite get a picture of that.

The article "Viva 2014" delighted me in other ways than the chance to do a little linguistic analysis. Life in January 1914 in El Paso felt so innocent and so hopeful.  What a contrast to present day articles about New Year's celebrations that urge restraint in eating and drinking and stress safety as the main concern. I would love to have joined my fellow El Pasoans of a century ago in ringing in the New Year.  But since I can't...

Charles Dickens' Amazing Language

Should I really read Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol again this holiday season?  I've been making that activity a Christmas tradition for more years than I can remember.  I know every character, every plot twist, every description, and I can even quote some of the lines.  Could Dickens still enthrall me?

I picked up my well worn paperback copy and decided to read just a few pages this year.  I was hooked. And it wasn't so much what Dickens said as how he said it.  Unlike many modern books that encourage lighting-speed reading to find out what happens next, Dickens slows down my frantic reading pace so that I can savor his language.  I want to share with you some of Dickens' language that still sends a thrill up my spine.

Photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lorenjavier/3558739760/">Loren Javier</a> / <a href="http://foter.com/">Foter.com</a> / <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/">CC BY-ND</a>

"Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!"  Every time I am not as generous at Christmas time as I should be, I think about that string of adjectives.  I wouldn't anyone to substitute my name for Scrooge!

"He [Scrooge] carried his own low temperature always about him;..."  Can't you just picture it?  A person who gives off such negative signals that he succeeds in driving away the world, which is exactly what he wants to achieve.

"The city clocks had only just gone three but it was quite dark already-it had not been light all day,,,"  Even in El Paso, Texas, I notice darkness stealing away the light starting at about 3:00 pm.  I think that has a profound effect on a person's psyche.








When the boy Scrooge is going home with his sister, Fan, the schoolmaster invites them to his very chilly parlor to partake of "...a decanter of curiously light wine, and a block of curiously heavy cake."  The description of those refreshments always brings a smile to my face.

And how I would like to have attended the Fezziwigs' Christmas celebration to meet the participants.   "In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable.  In came the six young followers whose hearts they broke."







I would have enjoyed shopping for Christmas dinner at the fruiterers where there were "...great, round pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors..."

But the future turns darker.  Dickens describes the two children under the Ghost's robe, Ignorance and Want as "yellow, meager, ragged, scowling, wolfish..."  The last of the Spirits leads Scrooge to a graveyard and points to a gravestone with Scrooge's name.  Scrooge wants to know if he is doomed.

 

  "The finger pointed from the grave to him and back again.
   'No, spirit!  Oh, no,no!'
   The finger still was there."


A Christmas Carol  is available free online from many different sources.  Thanks for letting me share some of my favorite Dickens' language.  Do you have a favorite scene from A Christmas Carol?

Happy Holidays to all.  See you the week of December 30th!

Do you make statements into questions like Valley Girls do?

'Uptalk' may no longer be just for California Valley Girls.  Have you noticed English speakers using a rising intonation at the end of statements instead of questions lately?  I have, and I must admit I have broken the cardinal rule of descriptive linguists: Accept language as it is currently being used rather than criticize usage. But that new use of  rising intonation has been bugging me!

These thoughts came to me after reading the article, "More men speaking in girls' 'dialect,' study shows" at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25232387.  First I was intrigued by what a girls' 'dialect' might be.  As I understand it, linguists don't agree on the question of whether men and women speak differently. But the raised pitch at the end of all sentences has been identified with young women in California and Australia.  (Why Australia, I asked myself, but that is a topic for another time.)

In English, our pitch generally rises when we want to speak a question.  For example, the statement "The children played" can be transformed into a question by letting your voice rise on the 'played.' So a rising intonation for statements as well as questions is a new ( and therefore controversial) feature of the English language. 

If you are not quite sure what rising intonation is, see if you can identify at least two instances of  a speaker making a statement sound like a question in this YouTube video.

California/Valley Girl Accent 

'Uptalk' has been criticized for making the speaker appear to be less than credible.  Adjectives like 'airhead' and 'ditzy' come to mind.   But how about the use of   'uptalk' by the young lady in the video?  I think she made statements into questions as part of a communication style that attempts to involve the listener.  She appears to be seeking the understanding, and possibly the confirmation of her ideas, by the listener.  And isn't that what we females often do? Ask a question to involve the other person?

The article states that women are often trailblazers in language, coming up with innovations first, with the males following later.  And the article states that more men are now using 'uptalk.'  I had always viewed women as the more conservative gender in speech, but that may be changing as well. 

I'm going to start listening for more instances of 'uptalk' now. And I am going to be really embarrassed if I find myself using that language device. I would be interested to learn if you or your acquaintances are now into 'uptalk.'   

Something Got Lost in Translation

My home in El Paso, Texas is a living laboratory for language use.  El Paso is a bilingual community on the Texas-Mexico international border.  I constantly read every written word in sight and eavesdrop on as many conversations as I can without being obvious. So, I  keep myself well entertained in life by analyzing why a language expression  is just a little off as we attempt to express ourselves in English and Spanish. 

Take for example a sign that has popped up recently in our neighborhood. "We install Xmas lights. Elegant and fine." I am usually doing my 20 minute a day constitutional when I see it, so I have plenty of time to consider why that sign strikes me as a bit odd.   Does the sign communicate? Yes, of course, but it's the word 'fine' that interests me. 






Even though the Merriam Webster Dictionary lists 'elegant' as a synonym for 'fine', my instinct as an English native speaker is otherwise.  I can imagine a holiday light display as being 'elegant', but I probably wouldn't describe it as 'fine'.  Ah, but the Spanish word 'fino' carries a sense of being refined, classy, well-executed. I think this is a case of translating 'fino' as 'fine' (the two words being cognates), but the range of nouns that are described by the two adjective is a shade different.  Is this a big deal?  No, just something to ponder as I huff and puff around the neighborhood park.

Another example.  Recently I overheard a conversation in a local pharmacy waiting area that went something like this:
Customer:  We have been waiting for a long time for our prescription.
Employee:  What is your last name?
Customer:  Smith
Employee:  And your name?
Customer:  Do you mean my first name?
Employee:  Yes.
Customer:  Susan.

What led to the momentary confusion?  I think it was the fact that in English, the general concept of 'name' divides into 'first name' and 'last name'.  But in Spanish, the division is made by using two different words, 'apellido' (last name) and 'nombre'  (first name).  So the employee did a quick translation of 'nombre' to the English 'name' and didn't quite communicate.  A good example, I think, of the complexities of a bilingual society.

And lest you should think I am being overly critical, let me confess a serious language mistake I made when I was young, trying to communicate in my second language, Spanish.  I was still in college, teaching Spanish at an institute run by a elderly, refined gentleman.  I had occasion to write him a note about a visitor who had come to see him, and I used the word 'hombre' instead of 'señor'.  It was the equivalent of calling the person  a 'man' instead of a 'gentleman'.  I didn't lose my job, but I did get sufficiently chastised to not make that mistake ever again.

Have you had similar language experiences with something that got lost in translation?  I would love to hear about them.